19 April 2013

Review: Josiah's Treasure by Nancy Herriman

Sarah Whittier has just acquired the lease to develop her art design studio, where she will train and employ young women with no other honourable options in 1882 San Francisco. But all her plans might come to nothing: not only is she having trouble finding investors for her studio, but there is a rumour of treasure in the house she recently inherited which has incited a break-in, and she may lose her house to a stranger.

Daniel Cady has spent months locating the father who abandoned him, his mother and his two young sisters nine years ago. But instead of finding his father, he finds Josiah is dead and an attractive young woman with high ideals has inherited the estate, not his children: apparently, Josiah believed his family was dead.

It’s not really made clear why Sarah has to go bowing and scraping to find investors for her art studio, given that she has just inherited an estate worth thousands (even if there isn’t a lot of ready cash, there is a property to use as collateral). And the early chapters of Josiah's Treasure allude to Sarah’s history in a way that makes it feel as though this is a sequel when it is not (I checked, because it really felt as though there was a background that I was supposed to know).

But Josiah's Treasure evens out as Sarah and Daniel work together to determine who is trying to break in to the house, find the truth to the rumours that Josiah left a fortune in gold hidden in the house, as well as discovering a mutual attraction. I liked Daniel but didn’t really relate to Sarah. Without having the background as to why she wanted to save and train the girls for her art studio, she came across as too cliché in her apparent perfection, and we didn’t see any change in her lack of faith in God. We were told she had not changed, but not shown that change, and that was a definite weakness. Enjoyable enough, but predictable.

Thanks to Worthy Publishing and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Nancy Herriman at her website.

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